Full Tilt
by Andi Horton
Summary: An afternoon's practice on the list field at Anvard finds a Prince unhorsed and a Queen in a state of self reproach.


Full Tilt

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"And don't forget," said Mr Tumnus, "that you are promised your first suit of armour and your first war horse on your next birthday. And then your Highness will begin to learn how to tilt and joust. And in a few years, if all goes well, King Peter has promised your royal father that he himself will make you Knight at Cair Paravel."

~ _The Horse and His Boy_

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"I just don't see how I'm supposed to keep from sticking the oncoming horse, is all." Prince Cor sat nervously (and heavily) on a placid charger, studying the length of the list before them.

"Your Highness has struck the quintain with commendable accuracy this entire week past," sighed the long-suffering schooling-master. "Your Highness must trust that I would not allow you to do this before you were quite ready; you must also trust that I would not allow you to endanger the horse. Horses are expensive, eh?" he joked, but Cor did not feel like joking. He only felt very hot, and worried, and more than a little ill.

"I— I'm not sure that—"

"Come, now!" the master said irritably. He was an irritable man in general, but King Lune kept him on because he really did know more about the sport than anyone else in Narnia or Archenland and possibly the surrounding kingdoms, as well. And because he really would not allow the knights — or knights-in-training — to endanger the horses. "Enough of this. I want to see you moving at a controlled speed; you are always mindful of your seat, but I want to see you staying on when Dar makes contact, you understand? That should be well within your capabilities."

Cor had discovered early on in his training that the schooling-master's estimation of his abilities and Cor's own estimation thereof differed quite widely. True, he had also discovered that the master was usually the closer of them to a true grasp of the situation, but that didn't make it any easier for him to contemplate crossing lances with Dar and possibly injuring the man or his horse. Cor liked Dar quite well; he also liked horses. Nevertheless he nodded resolutely to let the master know he was ready, then backed his mount carefully into position.

"Let's try not to flub this _too_ badly, all right, Flossie?" he entreated nervously. Flossie, the sizeable mare beneath Cor, merely mouthed her bit with an air of tranquil introspection. Cor had a fleeting, desperate wish that he might have somehow cajoled his friend Bree into helping him with this, instead— Bree would have been no more encouraging than the schooling-master, but at least he'd have known enough to duck if Cor let Dar's lance get too close. Of course to suggest to Bree that he carry Cor on his back in any but the most dire emergency would have been horrifically insulting to the horse, but knowing this didn't make Cor wish it any less fervently at the time.

"Please don't get hurt," he requested of his horse, then gathered the reins a little clumsily in his gauntleted hands and kneed Flossie forward.

Flossie, of course, had done this many times before, and was a sensible enough horse that, with a rider on her back possessing even a trifling degree of skill and control, she could be counted on to do what she knew was expected of her and no less. Cor knew this in theory, but as the thunder of her stride and the oncoming rumble of Dar's horse filled his head, echoing round inside his helmet, he let himself forget it, just a little. And, because he didn't forget it in favour of concentrating particularly hard on watching the angle and approach of Dar's lance, but rather in favour of worrying even more, it shouldn't be all that surprising to learn that Dar's lance cracked squarely into Cor's shield, sending the prince somersaulting backward off Flossie.

If you have ever fallen from a horse, you may have some idea of the bone-jarring impact that such a fall creates. Until you have fallen from a horse in full armour, though, I am afraid you can't know exactly just _how_ jarring it was for Prince Cor to strike the ground. All the breath went completely out of him and for just a moment the whole world seemed very small and tight around him, and yet at the same time strangely far away. Then all the wind came rushing back into him in one sharp, piercing, painful gasp, and everything everywhere hurt him horribly, and suddenly the schooling-master was leaning over him, shouting "back on your feet, boy, and catch your horse!"

Cor reflected, for not the first time, that Bree would probably get along quite well with the schooling-master.

Grimacing, wincing, and trying not to let any of his discomfort show, Cor rolled slowly and creakily-clankily to his knees, and from there he got to his feet again.

"Art yet whole, your Highness?" Dar enquired from his seat astride his horse, some yards away. Cor managed a shaky nod, and Dar nodded too, relieved. It is never a pleasant prospect, to be required to joust with your future regent.

Cor didn't have a very difficult time catching Flossie; Flossie knew what was expected of her, and executed only a mildly protesting trot for a yard or two before she allowed Cor to regain her head, and they began the whole thing again.

Although Cor is not a self-aggrandising sort of fellow, I think it probably gentler on him overall if I might spare you the full detail of his efforts that day. Suffice to say that he was still only learning to do the thing properly, and as is the case when any of us are only learning, he made a great number of mistakes and fell many times. He was struck more often than he himself struck, and perhaps the highest praise I might truthfully make of him is that he got up every time he fell down, and he truly did make every effort to heed the instruction of the schooling-master. I must also tell you that when at last Prince Corin appeared to take his turn, Cor could not contain a tiny sigh of relief, but of course there is no shame in that.

The schooling-master, though, took another view of the thing entirely, for when he turned to receive his next pupil, he found that not only had Prince Corin brought his horse, he had also brought along Queen Lucy of Narnia, who had brought an extra horse— but not her own palfrey. Rather, Queen Lucy was holding the head of one of King Lune's destriers, tacked up for the list-field; the Queen herself was wearing light plate armour, a mail coif over a leather one, and carried a steel helmet under one arm. The master's face turned purple at the sight.

"What is this?" he sputtered.

"Darrin's got a bad 'flu," Lucy said cheerfully, "and he's laid up in bed for at least a day or two. King Lune was going to forbid Corin the list-field until he was well again! I said I couldn't have that; he's been practicing so hard, you know, and their father has promised the Princes that they might compete next month if they train diligently enough. So I volunteered to compete with him."

"I— your Majesty, with all respect . . ." the poor master was looking at her in desperate entreaty. "Surely Lord Dar would not object to—"

"I can't allow that," Lucy shook her head. "He's been out here all morning practicing, and then working with Cor as well. He must be exhausted; it wouldn't be fair to him, or safe for either one of them. And King Lune won't trust anybody else to compete with his Highness; I really am the only option, I'm afraid."

"But surely, Madam . . . that is, if your Majesty's brothers knew, surely they'd—"

"Oh, they wouldn't be thrilled, certainly," Lucy nodded. "You'd not believe the fuss they made just when I started taking passes at the quintain! Even when it got so I could strike it each time, they still didn't care much for the idea. But they've come around, mostly, since I only do it for a bit of fun, and they've seen I really do mean it when I promise to be careful; they'd not forbid it, if that's what's worrying you. I don't mind you checking with them," graciously, "if you feel you simply must."

Of course the poor man would not question the Queen's word by actually sending a messenger to ask the Kings if she was telling the truth, but he looked for a moment as though he'd very much like to. Cor, struggling his way off Flossie's back and clanking awkwardly over to join the group, was conscious of deep pity for his schooling-master. It really wasn't a comfortable position to be in, and he knew that Lucy would not have put the master in it if she hadn't known how desperately Corin wanted the opportunity to practice; if she hadn't, at one time, shared that desperation herself.

"Well?" Prince Corin obviously felt much more in the way of impatience than pity. "Are you going to let us onto the field, or must we wait while somebody runs to fetch us King Peter's blessing?"

The verdict was that no blessing would be required, but certain precautions would be.

"I can't allow her Majesty to compete in the open," the master said firmly. "The Kings would have my head." He met Corin's burgeoning protests with an unyielding scowl. "You will compete with her Majesty à la toille, your Highness," he informed the boy, "or not at all." So Corin subsided, scowling, allowing the master to turn back to Queen Lucy. "Madam," he said, with a respectful bow, "if you will allow me the time to raise the tilt?"

"Of course, Sam," said Lucy, who was the sort of person who knew everyone's name. "Whatever you need to do." Then she sat on the fence and chatted with both Princes and Dar as the master hurried off to see about raising the tilt that the Queen's grace might have her pleasure at trying her hand on the field.

"Really, Madam," Dar tried to put in a vote for the master, "I am not as wearied as one might expect. If it would be agreeable, I could—"

"You could do a header off your horse and break your neck," Lucy finished. "Look, you can't even take proper breaths in between your words, can you? You're exhausted. I do appreciate the offer, though, Dar; I will tell Edmund that you did your best to stop me." She twinkled her eyes at him quite kindly, and a little impishly as well. "I know he'll ask."

Dar looked as though he'd not found this reassurance quite as comforting as Lucy might have meant him to, but of course a knight and a gentleman couldn't say as much, and so he only bowed his thanks (and then broke out coughing, and had to catch his breath; Lucy was right, he really was in no shape to compete again, especially against Prince Corin, who, even at this early stage in his training, had already acquired a penchant for giving his opponents bruises to remember him by).

The tilt had, by this point, been set firmly in place, at which sight Corin clambered onto his horse at once and headed for the far side of the field. Lucy, however, remembered her manners, and so before mounting her horse and taking up her place at the opposite end of the field on the opposing side of the tilt, she made her smiles and excuses to Dar and Cor, both of whom had stripped off the hottest and heaviest parts of their armour in order that they might stay to watch. For, as Cor said afterward, it was just one of those things a fellow couldn't help but want to see.

I can't blame him, either, for tilting of any sort is an impressive sport to watch, and this match was made no less exciting for it simply being a cordial one. Indeed, on the surface of it, you might not have seen any difference between the tilting done at tourneys and wars and the tilting that Corin and Lucy did that day. The style of it was certainly much the same, with both riders thundering down the list-field at the highest speed they could safely control and lowering their lances to catch and unhorse their opponents. The impact of the lance resounded with as satisfying a clang and crack as it always did, and perhaps most importantly the skill of both combatants was not too grossly, unevenly matched, with Lucy having the undeniable advantage of greater experience while Corin had, at least, the advantage of equipment sized to fit him.

Had you looked a little closer, though, you might have seen the differences that made this a schooling-match between friends, rather than one of the grimmer matches seen at tourneys. Instead of charging right-on-right, so that their lances caught each other directly, the Queen and Prince were left-on-left so that their lances crossed their horses' necks and caught at a gentler angle. They bore shields, which some knights in tourneys do not do, and which also lessened the impact of the lance. Perhaps most distinctively, however, was the manner in which both conducted themselves; naturally a knight on the field must conduct himself with honour, but the Queen and Prince went further than that. Rather than make their passes and strike their blows in grim silence, Lucy and Corin would take the time after each pass to ride up alongside one another and trade notes about where each of them went right, where they went wrong, and how they might improve themselves for the next time.

The schooling-master had a part in these chats too, of course, and Cor and Dar both had to smile at the sight of the burly little man barking corrections up at both riders (only someone intimately familiar with the master would have noticed that his bark when addressing the Queen was a slightly modified, more respectful version of his usually harsh tone). The master's encouragements were few and far between, but he did have them to offer, when they were justly earned.

"Straighten up any later, boy, and you'll be blinded before nightfall," Corin was warned. "You need to sit up _before_ the lance makes contact; your helmet will only protect you from splinters if you use it properly. You, Madam," to the Queen, "he's not made of spun sugar, I want to see a tighter angle on that lance than you've allowed him before. Aye, it will jar you more when you make contact, but if you're sitting that horse properly you should be able to take it. Besides, t'would do the boy a world of good to be unhorsed now and again; if his head gets any bigger his helmet won't fit him anymore anyhow."

Lucy might have smiled at this observation, but there was no way to tell because her helmet covered her face. She did touch the visor, though, to acknowledge the master's words, and then they wheeled and rode off, and they made several passes more until at last the master called a halt and said he supposed they'd done as much good as they could in one session.

"Oh, can't we have just one more?" Corin called. "Please, neither of us has been unhorsed even once!"

"Aye, well, if perhaps her Majesty might stop treating you as though you've just toddled fresh from the nursery you might have felt the ground under your back at least once today," the master grunted. "Thinks you soft, she does."

"Sam, really!" Lucy's frown could be heard in her voice, and Corin's indignation was unmistakeable.

"She does _not_! Queen Lucy, you don't think that, do you?"

"I— no, Corin, of course not," Lucy assured him, but Cor, listening, thought that he heard perhaps the slightest hesitation in her tone.

"Well then," the master scowled, dusting his hands off on his knees, "perhaps your Majesty would favour the Prince with the unhorsing he's howling after. Don't worry, Madam, he can take it; my lord Darrin's missish about unseating him as well, but the boy will never learn how to get back up if he can't first learn how to fall."

"It's a fair observation," Dar murmured, from his seat beside Cor. "But I doubt he'll provoke her to unseat the Prince by making it."

"Really?" Cor looked over in concern. "You think she truly believes he can't take a fall?"

"No-o," Dar said thoughtfully, rubbing his chin as he did, "not exactly. It's just that the Queen's grace is some years older than the pair of you, and it may take her some time before she can realise that as she gets older, so do you both. Not to say she thinks of you as children, of course; simply to say that she doesn't yet think of you as . . . quite grownup."

"Would it help her to think of us as grownup if _he_ unseated _her_?" Cor wondered. Dar hooted softly with laughter.

"He's a ways to go yet, your Highness, before he could unseat _her_. She's been holding back, she has; I've seen her at the quintain, and I've seen her with his Majesty, when King Edmund will consent to tilt with her. His Highness shows promise, but he's not _that_ good yet."

"Well then," Cor sighed, squirming a bit to find a more comfortable place on the fence, "I hope she can bring herself to do it. Corin does enjoy a good fall."

Corin did indeed enjoy a good fall; it also seemed that Corin understood he was unlikely to get one unless he could make Lucy see reason, so rather than wait for the master to give the word, he brought his horse forward and beckoned at Lucy to do the same. When she had drawn abreast of him Corin bent his head toward her and began talking in a low, furiously-paced voice. Cor and Dar strained to hear what was being said, but the words were lost long before they could carry as far as the fence. It wasn't even possible to read the faces of the combatants due to their helmets, and body language is simply nonexistent when one's body is covered in armour.

The only thing that Cor and Dar did see was Lucy finally sit back and incline her head, very slowly, just once. Then she and Corin raised their lances in polite salute before wheeling to take up their places at far ends of the field.

I don't know if you could have spotted the difference in their approach this time or not. It was so subtle as to have been easily missed, even by persons intimately familiar, not only with the sport, but also with the skill and style of each combatant. They still crossed their lances over their horses' necks, and neither horse was urged to a pace that could be considered anything close to reckless. But there was something ever-so-slightly different in the angle of Lucy's lance, and the depth of her seat in the saddle; it was not significant enough for anyone to remark on, but it was something significant enough that, when her lance met Corin's shield with a crack, there was no way anybody watching could have thought, even for a moment, that he would be able to stay on.

Nor did he; he tumbled off the back of his charger and hit the ground with a resounding clang. Lucy joined him on the ground soon after, although her dismount was a trifle more graceful; she reined her horse to a halt and leaped from the saddle as swiftly she could manage with plate armour weighing her down.

Before she could run over to make sure she hadn't killed the Prince, though (as I may tell you, in confidence, was her greatest fear) Corin was coughing, and gasping, and slowly rolling to his knees, from whence he then clambered to his feet. He tugged his helmet off and shook his head slowly to clear it, and Cor, from where he sat, thought for a moment that his brother's eyes had crossed, but if they had, then they righted themselves quickly and he looked quite himself once more.

"Oh, I _say_," Corin beamed, "can we do that again?"

"We— no we can _not_!" Lucy gasped. "My goodness, I was sure I'd broken your neck! No, I think that we are going to all of us go back to the castle and— and _read_. Yes, we are going to read very dull and improving books until I can think straight again, and— and—" but she broke off, because Corin had crossed to grab her hand in his and give it a hearty, heartfelt shake.

"Thanks, Lucy," he said earnestly. "Thanks very much."

"Well," Lucy said, a little mollified, "well, you're quite welcome, I'm sure. But," sternly, "I don't think I've ever been so frightened in my life, I just want you to know that."

Corin assured her he would remember it always, if it pleased her, after which promise they joined Dar and Cor, who congratulated Lucy on a sound hit.

Dar graciously declined Lucy's invitation to join them in the library, citing a pressing need to look in on his ailing brother, and so it was only the Queen and the two Princes who agreed that, after retreating to their rooms to change into clothing a trifle less combative, they would meet up again in the library.

It was as they were changing that Cor ventured to put a question to his brother, one he almost expected to go unanswered.

"What did you say to her?" he wondered. "To make her unseat you, what did you say?"

For a minute Cor thought his brother would refuse to answer. Corin tied his belt and started for the door without speaking; it was only as he put his hand to the ring handle that he made his reply.

"I told her I only wanted the same as she had; the chance for a fair fight. It took her forever to get King Edmund to agree to tilt with her, and still sometimes he won't. It's the same reason, of course; he's afraid to hurt her, same as she was afraid to hurt me. But I knew, if I explained it just right, she'd understand why I wanted to so badly. And once she understands, she's too fair not to listen."

Then he left the room, and Cor had to hurry to tug on his boots and run to catch up. He overtook his brother just inside the castle library, where Lucy, true to her word, made the boys sit and listen as she read aloud from the dullest and most improving book she could find, until she could at last think clearly again and a steward appeared to summon them down to dinner.

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**A.N.:** Edited the ending of this a few minutes after posting it; I saw, in reading it over, that I'd left out rather a crucial part!

This is pure, self-indulgent fluff, of course, and was written pretty much just as a way of letting myself sulk a little, as well as a small tribute to the ladies and gentlemen who hopefully acquitted themselves well this week past on the list-fields in Arizona. Most of you probably have no idea (and even more probably, no interest whatsoever in this fact) but the Estrella War is going on right now (well, they broke camp today, actually, but it was on all this past week) and it is just breaking my heart that I wasn't able to go watch . . . consider this story, if you will, not only my way of sulking but also of living vicariously! I am actually pretty jealous of these characters, right now.

They are not, however, my own characters, which means I have also been known to feel some jealousy toward CS Lewis, being as they are, of course, wholly his.

Quick notes on the terms that might be a little unfamiliar— a quintain is a sort of practice target, usually a post about six feet in height, used to give jousters practice with the lance. A palfrey is a type of finely-bred riding horse that was favoured by wealthy knights and nobility, and a destrier is a heavy war horse that was principally favoured for the joust; their present-day equivalents are still used in modern jousting competitions. Additionally, the word jousting itself doesn't just refer to charging each other with lances lowered; it actually encompasses a whole pack of different battle styles employed on the list-field. What Lucy and Corin did is called tilting. The tilt is the barrier that was introduced in the 14th century or so; it is erected in the lists (the boundaries of the competition— basically the fighting field) to keep knights from having full contact with one another when they charge. This style of jousting with lances is also known as à la toille, and is a safer form of competing than the alternative, which is to compete in the open, without a tilt between the knights. This style of fighting is incredibly dangerous, and the master probably shouldn't have allowed the Crown Prince to compete that way, but I expect he'd become accustomed to dealing with Corin, who almost certainly would have refused to learn any other way.


End file.
